This article helps you to add employees into Abtrac and set up Logins and passwords for them. You can also watch an ‘Abtrac Quick Tutorial:- Adding Employees and a Login’ in the Abtrac YouTube channel here.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Employees
Managing Access to Abtrac by Employee Office
It is possible to limit access for Abtrac users by office, enabling them to only view and edit offices to which they have been assigned.
This is useful to help employees find information related to their particular office, or even if you have multiple companies within the one Abtrac data file, it helps keep your companies separated.
We recommend that if you are interested in using this feature, you satisfy yourself that all relevant data in Abtrac has an office assigned.
If you have been using multiple offices for some time this shouldn’t be an issue, but if you are new to multiple offices or otherwise wary of data inaccuracies, then the Abtrac support team are available for consulting to ensure accuracy and a smooth transition.
Scaled Cost Rates
If you are using AbtracOnLine reports for KPI’s it’s possible to balance the reporting of employees working overtime by looking at scaled cost rates.
Scaled cost rates spread an employee cost across their actual hours worked, as opposed to cost rates which work with the required hours for the period.
The following reports in Abtrac include an option for scaled cost rates:
- Invoice Listing
- Invoices vs Time and Disbursements by Project
- Fees & Cost by Employee, Client & Project
Scaled Cost Rates are a modified version of the cost rate. They effectively scale back the cost rate across an excessive number of hours to those specified in an employees required units per timesheet.
Bulk Edit Timesheets
This screen is useful when you need to update timesheet details in bulk, it eliminates the need to open and edit the individual users’ timesheets.
This timesheet maintenance screen is most typically used in the following situations:
- Updating Employee rates
- Editing Stage/Task or Activities that have been incorrectly assigned
- Changing the job code an employee is assigning time to
- To check if/when timesheets have been billed and
- To check which invoice the WIP has been assigned to
- To obtain data not available in performance reports for specific employees, in particular, to view timesheet data for employees who are no longer current.
How to Archive data (make items non-current)
How does making items non-current help you
Simple, fewer pieces of information to load means you will have a faster system.
Screens such as the searches, timesheet entries, invoices, and some reports all load with the current data that is available in the system, so it’s pretty straightforward to think that making items non-current will give you a quicker response for all these pages.
Managing changes to your subscription
From September 1st 2017 we are changing the way we manage adjustments to your Abtrac subscription.
We are moving to a more automated licensing system, leaving you in control of your licensed employees and your monthly licence fees.
When you make a change to your employees (or add-on modules) you will now be asked to confirm this change – and acknowledge any resultant change to your subscription fees. Read on for more details on what is involved in the new system, and how it may affect your current AbtracOnLine subscription.
Using Home page widgets
In the Abtrac Home page, we have a small number of dashboard items called ‘widgets’, which you can control for each user group in your office.
Employee Charge Rates
Employee Charge Rates in AbtracOnLine can be as simple or as flexible as required.
This article explains how to set up default charge rates, multiple rates for employees and how to hide rate details from timesheet users.
Employee Charge Rates: Specific Rates
Employee Charge Rates in Abtrac can be as simple or as flexible as required.
It is possible to enter unique charge rates for specific clients, jobs, projects, tasks, stages or activities. These unique rates will override the default charge rate for the specified employees (or in the case of activities, the rates will apply for all employees)
Here’s how to ensure you have the right charge rates in the right location for your billing requirements.
There’s a bit of a hierarchy as to which rate is applied when, read on for details.
Tips for Using Multiple Offices
Your business details can include information for multiple branches/offices in Administration >> Settings >> Office Settings in AbtracOnline.
These Offices or Branches can also be applied to each employee, job or project and carried through to invoicing and analysis.
You can then run reports by office – comparing performance and profitability between branches and managing workflow.
It is also useful when you have one tax entity but different physical addresses, and different invoicing and accounting requirements between locations.
There’s also an option to limit access for Abtrac users by office, enabling them to only view and edit offices to which they have been assigned.
When using multiple offices in Abtrac, there are a few things to bear in mind.
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Current Employees
AbtracOnLine subscriptions are based on the number of current employees or users. These users are defined as being not only current logins, but also the number of current employees being managed through Abtrac. More details are here in our Terms.
You can add or amend users from the administration screen. If your current employees exceed your licensed users in Abtrac you’ll either receive a licensing notification, or hear from the support team directly to adjust your subscription. If you don’t need extra users, then you might just need to make some changes to your current employees.
Changing your login and password
Administrator changing logins and passwords
AbtracOnLine is only accessible with a current username and password. Your username must be a valid email address and we recommend choosing a secure password (there are tips for secure passwords in this article). Abtrac passwords must be at least 7 characters long, and contain a combination of upper/lower case letters and at least one number.
Teams or Departments, Which should I use?
In Abtrac both Employees, and Projects can be assigned to a specific Team or Department for reporting purposes. The main difference is…
- A Team is assigned to an Office, and as such can be filtered in reports by office.
- A Department is a stand-alone group that both employees and projects from multiple offices can belong to.
Both groups can be created and maintained from the Administration screens.
Employee Cost Rates
To ensure your profitability reports are as accurate as they can be, it’s a good idea to review your employee cost rates regularly. The new year is as good a time as any to check your management data is up to date.
